Strawberry plants help please!!!!

craigywv

Hi, i have a clay sb planter and quite a few hanging baskets with sb in them , well i have gotten a great harvest from them so what do i do now? Dont mean to sound dim but i dont know what to do to protect them, will they come back next year? do i have to keep watering them? thanks for replies in advancexx:)

kittycat204

Mine just die back and rejuvenate in the spring. Last year few years they have been covered in snow and frost and have come back no problems.

midnightraven3

same here
i have them in pots, in the ground and in a strawberry planter
i pot the runners but i just leave the rest, lots of frost and snow here
but they keep coming back

craigywv

midnightraven3 wrote: »

same here
i have them in pots, in the ground and in a strawberry planter
i pot the runners but i just leave the rest, lots of frost and snow here
but they keep coming back

:)thank-u both for reply, what do you mean you plant the runners ?????????????/ see told you i was dim!

Linda32

If you look at the plants, you will see longer shoots trailing from the plants. Follow these shoots and you will see baby plants with leaves forming. Hope this makes sense If you cut theses trailing parts off from the main plant and push into compost in new pots (push them in where the new leaves are) then these will root and you will get new plants next year.

The original plants should last for about three years (although if you are keeping them in pots they will need new compost each year) But each year, each plant will produce runners (as said above) and these inturn will be new plants.


The very best thing to do is to just try it out. Monitor what happens, keep notes.

Its not dim at all, btw :T

craigywv

oh great thanks LINDA32 brill hope i get a dry day tomorrow to do this, i do cut the runners now as apposed to spring am i right?

aliasojo

craigywv wrote: »

oh great thanks LINDA32 brill hope i get a dry day tomorrow to do this, i do cut the runners now as apposed to spring am i right?

You're better to shove the runners in a small pot of compost before you cut them off from the main plant.

That way they get to root whilst still getting support from the plant.

GreyQueen

You're not dim, you're just learning.

Strawberries are perennials and will overwinter quite happily. They're bred from alpine plants and snow and frost don't bother them at all. What you will see now is that some of the leaves will turn from green to scarlet and these will eventually turn brown and die.

There is nothing amiss, it's just what they do. The strawbs will keep some dark green leaves throughout the winter but they will go dormant. In spring, look closely down at the heart of each plant and you will see a nest of fresh green leaves just waiting to burst out. When it's warm enough, they'll grow like crazy and form lovely little dome-shaped cushions of leaves.

Strawbs spread by sending out long red stems (called "runners") apart from the ordinary leaves and flower-bearing stems. The runners grow a certain distance, usually about 18 inches, then they form a joint and a new strawberry plantlet forms.

If the joint with the plantlet lands on the soil, it will grow roots and form a new plant. You can put a flowerpot of compost under the plantlet and allow it to root and get well-established before severing it's runner to the parental plant. Spider plants do a very similar thing.

The first year, the new plant will be very small and not really productive. It will chuck out a few flowers and even runners but it's recommended that you cut off the flowers and runners to make it concentrate it's stength to make a good strong plant which will be in fine fettle for the following year.

It's very hard to kill strawberries, they propagate themselves like bunnies and mine are hand-me-downs from other lottie keepers, and I've kept them going by passing their runners to other lottie-keepers.

Strawbs are reckoned to start losing productivity after their third year, so a prudent gardener is always bringing on some runners so as some mature lose their peak productivity, others come along into theirs. HTH.

Linda32

aliasojo and GreyQueen explained it far better than I did. I shouldn't have said to cut the runners from the main plant before they had rooted. Please follow their instructions. (I did know what I meant which didn't really help)

That said, please do give it a go with making new plants, its a great way to learn, actually doing the job rather than "book learning", you find out what works and what dosn't.

For instance, by next summer you will know that strawberries are as tough as old boots and can stand all weathers.

craigywv

great girls thanks very well explained and will deffo give it a go many thanks!!!

inspirespirit

I found this thread very useful so thankyou to the OP for starting it and to the people answering. I'm also a newbie to the world of growing your own. I grew red peppers this year and can't believe I actually had red peppers that we could eat. Talk about a eureka moment. lol. I want to grow so much next year. Will deffo give strawberries a go.